


Is it just me, or is the educational system in Harry Potter somewhat lacking?

by ElrondsScribe



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Educational, Essays, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-05
Updated: 2015-03-04
Packaged: 2018-03-16 09:30:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3483122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElrondsScribe/pseuds/ElrondsScribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An epiphany that came to me in the midst of writing for my Avenger of Blood universe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

**WARNING: The following journal entry was written by a Christian homeschool graduate who tends to look at education from a perspective that most people find confusing or controversial.**  
  
So there I was in the middle of writing for my Avenger of Blood arc, in particular The Mighty Ducks Go To High School, and a nagging little problem suddenly presented itself to me. I pushed it into the back of my brain and tried to ignore it at first. But then as I began gathering more information and generally immersing myself in the world of Harry Potter, I just couldn’t seem to ignore it any longer, especially as I am by no means the first to notice this, or ask questions about it.  
  
The original problem I thought of was this: why would Casey Conway (or any Muggle parent really, like the Grangers for example) even consider such a wild and wacky idea as a school that teaches magic for her son?  
  
Think about it: a man shows up at your door and tells you that your kid, whom you raised from infancy, is a wizard and has been accepted into a wizard school. He seems to expect you to not only accept the concept that magic is real, but that it is real _in your child_ , whom you probably know better than do most people on the planet. He gives you a glowing account of everything that Hogwarts or Weston’s or wherever has to offer, which of course neither you nor your son can fully appreciate. He cannot give you a website or e-mail address or phone number or even a postal address for the school so that you can contact someone for more info or go visit the place to get a feel for what it’s like, etc. If you type the name of the school into a search engine, nothing comes up. It’s doesn’t show up on Google Maps. There is no particular reason for you to believe the whole thing is anything but a joke.  
  
If by chance you mention this to your Hogwarts/Weston’s/wherever representative, then he will give you some story about some International Statue of Wizarding Secrecy that has been in effect for four hundred years, and because of it the whole magical community is basically hidden from the rest of the world in every way possible.  
  
And the nature of the studies! Potions, Charms, Transfiguration, _Divination_ for crying out loud and a helluva bunch more - but nothing that will actually prepare your son for _anything_ in the real world, or the “Muggle” world - no mathematics (Arithmancy doesn’t count), no science (Herbology and Potions don’t count), no English or literature or any sort, no logic or critical thinking, no sex ed, etc., etc. You get the impression that once your son is done with wizard school (assuming the whole thing isn’t some big prank), he can only get a job or any kind of higher education in the wizarding world - obviously, with expertise in subjects like you see in the acceptance letter, he has no chance at Muggle college or Muggle work or any kind. You suspect that with all this magical training you’ll be lucky if your son will even be driving by the end of this equivalent of high school.  
  
So let’s say that, like Casey Conway does in my story, you allow your son to make the decision, and he decides he wants to go, thereby forcing upon you both one of the biggest gambles either of you have ever taken or will take in your lives. The representative takes you shopping for a magic wand and a magic broom and books about magic and blah, blah, blah.  
  
As an aside, in my story Casey and Charlie are lucky, as Charlie has a full ride scholarship and the school is paying for nearly everything Charlie needs. But most Muggle parents (like the Grangers again) have to pay for all this crap out of pocket, and it ain’t cheap stuff either. There happen to be a couple of sites where you can get the conversion rate of Galleons to English pounds, or in my case, American dollars. Do you know how much a seven-Galleon wand would have cost back in the 1990s? More than _$70_ , and in 1990s dollars, and oh by the way, we still have to buy half a dozen textbooks, an owl for carrying mail (because there’s no way to talk to your child otherwise), scales, maps, charts, a telescope, and more. Talk about a costly gamble.  
  
Well, if your child’s going to Hogwarts at least you’re not paying admission.  
  
So to continue, you send your son and all his magical supplies off to a school that you’ve never seen and never will see. Your only means of communication with him is by letter, and you have to depend on an owl to deliver your letters (talk about a literal carrier-pigeon). When he comes home for the summer and holiday breaks, he can’t show you what he’s been learning at school, thanks to the rule about underage magic. You have to take his word for it that any learning is going on at all, especially as the subjects he claims he's taking disqualify him from any profession you know of.

Finally, after years of what you hope is hard work, your son finishes school and, as you suspected he would, vanishes into the wizarding world to get a job or go to college or whatever, and you rarely, if ever, see him or hear from him again. Pretty high price to pay for having a son who can work magic, especially as you can’t boast of his abilities to anyone.  
  
So much for Part 1.


	2. Part 2

**WARNING: The following journal entry was written by a Christian homeschool graduate who tends to look at education from a perspective that most people find confusing or controversial.**  
  
So in Part 1 I dealt with the ramifications for what happens in the life of a Muggle parent when they find out their child is a wizard or witch, and all the ramifications. Well now I’m going to look at the flipside of that coin, as you might say.  
  
Hogwarts is a secondary school, right? It would seem so. If you’re a Muggle-born, you go to primary school and learn reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmetic up until you’re eleven, at which point it is suddenly sprung on you that you’re a wizard or witch, and off you go to wizard boarding school (has anyone ever heard of a wizard school that is not a boarding school, by the way?).  
  
But what if you’re a pureblood, or a kid with wizard heritage of any sort? (And yes, I know, a Muggle-born has wizard heritage too, way far back in distant generations.) Are the Harry Potter books implying that kids from wizard or “mixed” families do _absolutely nothing_ with their magic until the age of eleven, or if you’re in America, fourteen? Am I the only one who finds that way of doing things somewhat ineficcient? Seriously, these kids exhibit signs of magic pretty early in childhood, and society waits to develop it until _secondary school?_  
  
Why on earth wouldn’t you want to start developing that raw magical talent into a skilled discipline as early as possible? From all I hear, accidental magic is pretty dangerous. Plus, if your mindset is like Dr. Suzuki’s (the man who developed the world-famous Suzuki method of learning music), you want to begin developing skilled disciplines like music (or magic, in my stories) sooner rather than later.  
  
Why not have an educational system that _early on_ helps little wizards and witches to at least control their magical outbursts, and from there they could work their way up to more complex studies (Transfiguration, Charms, Potions, etc.)? Or, heck, if that’s too much to consider, you could _homeschool_ the little tykes, or have a wizard/witch that you know and trust come in and tutor them. How’s that for a radical idea?


End file.
